NEWS

Silvia coaches students about managerial solutions in the intercultural workplace

On 8th June 2017 a workshop with
a guest speaker from Germany was held about Cross-cultural management (CCM). 24
students had opportunity to interact with Silvia Lawrence, from Coaching Point
AB, in English. During the workshop first year students gave presentations in
English about various topics in the field of Cross-cultural Management.
International students reported about their intercultural experiences and how
to cope with so called Culture Shock when studying abroad. Finally,
Silvia organized a role play that was designed based on a real case of a
Japanese semiconductor firm facing quality problems in their EU-based manufacturing
subsidiary. Split up in several groups they discussed how to solve the
management problem and reported it to Silvia at the end of the workshop. After
participating in this workshop, students had a higher opinion of PBL and
indicated that they would like to participate in similar PBL workshops in the
future. Especially, the interaction with international students and Silvia was
seen as valuable. One student, Kanako, was grateful to the organizer, Professor
Rolf D. Schlunze, and expressed her wish to have more opportunities to speak in
English. Another, Rikako told us that she learnt what intercultural
communications actually means. Further, students realized what kind of skills
are needed to work abroad. For example, Risa found that persuading people with
different culture is an important challenge and needs presentation skills in
English. Kazuki indicated that he realized that he is capable to think differently
when slipping into another role. Nanako suggested because we can share ideas we
can learn about other peoples’ opinion. Kazuhiro discovered that gathering
ideas and summing up it is useful for the intercultural management process. The
workshop has been a successful take-off to heighten first year students’
sensitivity on intercultural management problems.